


so tell me, darling, do you wish we'd fall in love?

by seeyousoo



Series: the saltwater room [1]
Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: A little bit of angst, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Dreams, M/M, Romance, but not too much
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-20
Updated: 2017-08-20
Packaged: 2018-12-17 19:22:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11858049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seeyousoo/pseuds/seeyousoo
Summary: Chanyeol dreams of milk, of trees, of paper planes and neon lights through the bottom of an empty shot glass, but more importantly, he dreams of Kyungsoo.





	so tell me, darling, do you wish we'd fall in love?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [EmmyWayward](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmmyWayward/gifts).



> happy belated birthday, Talia! i'm sorry this took so long!
> 
> title taken from [the saltwater room](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMp3TIVYwwk) by owl city

When Chanyeol opens his eyes, he sees nothing but white. An almost blinding white, like he is staring into the centre of the sun. It stings his eyes and makes them water, and he hides them behind his arm as the light wraps around him and seems to pulsate, humming and singing and vibrating in and around him, bright and sharp, as aggressive as it is soft.

And then there is colour. Reds, blues, yellows. A periscope of such brilliant and vivid shades and hues, as if he is stood in the centre of a watercolour painting. They swirl around him, dancing over his clothes and across his skin, licking up the walls and floor and coating everything in thick layers of rainbow, a glorious spectrum.

Chanyeol's fingers tingle and his heart thumps in his chest. He feels like he's on fire, then frozen in ice, like he's flying and then falling. After a few moments, just when it seems unbearable, everything fades completely. Chanyeol moves his arms from his eyes.

He is in a supermarket.

Specifically the dairy aisle, if the rows upon rows of cheese and yoghurt and milk are anything to go by. That would explain the chill that settles around him, bringing up his skin in little bumps. In the height of summer, Chanyeol had gone to sleep in nothing more than a pair of shorts and he now regrets his decision to forgo a top that night as he rubs his arms, bringing a semblance of heat back to his naked skin.

He recognises the supermarket as the one furthest from his house, closer to the edge of the city rather than the centre where Chanyeol lives, squashed with two others in an overpriced apartment like sardines. He has only been here once before. It is far too expensive and far away for him to make the journey every other week. Why is he here? Especially in the dairy aisle, of all places?

Rubbing his eyes, he takes a moment to adjust to the brightness, the monochrome whiteness of his surroundings becoming gradually less harsh as he blinks out sleep. There are a few people around him - a old man with a cane inspecting the prices of Brie nearby and a mother with her child at the far end of the aisle - but they are faceless, like ghosts, the curves and edges of their bodies blurred as they move like shadows around him, almost like his head knows there should be people there so it's doing its best to fill them in with only white crayon at it's disposal. There is no sound besides the muffled whirring of the refrigerators and everything feels rather distant, as if his head is underwater. It takes him a moment to realise what is happening.

Chanyeol is dreaming.

Chanyeol has never dreamed before. In his world, no one really dreams. Dreaming is not commonplace, does not take hold of you in your sleep every night and pull you deep into your own mind to conjure up magic and fiction that cannot be explained. When you sleep you see nothing but darkness, and that is how it is, how it always has been. At the age of twenty one, Chanyeol has never experienced what it is like to see the wonders of life flash behind his eyes when he sleeps.

That's not to say dreaming doesn’t happen at all.

Is this what it is like, to Dream? It feels like falling and flying at the same time, and everything is both solid and liquid, a gas that can be moulded and felt and touched. Everything is real, and yet Chanyeol knows that it can't be. He feels a little overwhelmed, chest tightening and tongue feeling dry. He doesn't know what to think, or what to do. What do you do when you dream? Do you do what you want or do you let the world change around you, pulling you along on whatever journey it has mapped out ahead? Chanyeol has no idea.

So he waits.

Because there is only one reason why people in this world dream.

Suddenly, breaking through the smothering quiet, there is the sound of footsteps behind him. Chanyeol turns to see someone new stood further down the aisle. 

He is short, a head or so shorter than Chanyeol himself, and his hair is trimmed and neat, a practical style in comparison to the chaotic hay bale that lives atop Chanyeol's head. The man's clothes, a simple shirt and jeans, are all black, plain and loose fitting, like they have been stretched from being worn so often. He is not blurry, bathed in a milky light, but sharp and defined, so picture perfect that he stands out like a blob of black ink on a pure white canvas, a single cloud in a solid blue sky. He moves with purpose, not slowed down by invisible weights like the other people around them, and everything else seems to fade into one white background as Chanyeol watches as the man scans his eyes over the different types of milk on the shelf in front of him.

Chanyeol cannot see his face, cannot see anything of him besides the slope of his neck and sturdiness of his hands, small but strong, long fingers and wide palms as he reaches out to take a carton of milk from the shelf, but Chanyeol doesn't need to see his face to know.

This is him.

He is the one.

His soulmate.

He wakes up with a start, clutching at his sheets as he pants desperately for breath into the dry, humid air, sweat soaking into his sheets and an ache in his heart that feels like it's shattering into a million pieces and reforming all over again.

Chanyeol has dreamed of Dreaming, and it is nothing like he has ever imagined.

~

"So I had my first dream the other day."

There's a clatter as Chanyeol's mother drops the spatula she was holding into the frying pan. "Oh, how wonderful!" she gasps, picking the utensil out as carefully as she can while simultaneously addressing her son over her shoulder. "How was it? What happened? Tell me everything!"

Chanyeol had been hesitant to bring up the fact he has started dreaming. He knows it's cause for celebration, but for some reason he wanted to keep it a secret, his own private experience. His mother is an amazing but excitable woman, and his sister would surely interrogate him about every little detail until the sun goes down, but he always tells his family everything, especially about things of importance. Besides, he hasn't seen them in months, busy with work and college. This is the first time in a while that he has managed to spare a morning to see them. He guesses he owns them something at least.

Yura couldn't make it, however. But Chanyeol doesn't mind. He can deal with her melodramatic screaming over the phone.

Chanyeol's father looks up from his newspaper, partway through chewing a mouthful of bacon, and leans across the table to pat Chanyeol on his shoulder while humming his congratulations. Chanyeol smiles back with as much joy as he can muster, still tired from waking up so early, picking at his own breakfast.

"I'm not sure," he says. "I was in a supermarket. That's kinda it."

Flipping the meat over, his mother then puts down her spatula and moves to stand behind her son, playing with his hair. "Did you see them? What were they like?"

Chanyeol thinks back to the dark hair and dark clothes, sturdy hands and ever so slightly sun-kissed skin. "I saw him. But I didn't see his face." He had thought about it for a long time, lying alone in the dark. This was his soulmate, and he has no idea what the man's face looks like. How unfair.

His father finishes his mouthful. "How did you find it, dreaming?" he asks, putting down his paper to lean across the table eagerly.

Chanyeol takes a moment to think. "I don't know," he says. "It was like hearing a song for the first time ever but somehow knowing all the words." He sighs and picks at his food again, choosing to roll it around on the plate with his chopsticks rather than eat it. "I don't know. Dreams are weird."

Laughing, his mother let's go of his hair and turns back to the stove. "They are," she sighs as she checks over the bacon, turning it off when she deems the meat perfectly cooked. "I remember my first one, you know," she sighs wistfully with a smile thrown over her shoulder as she turns. "Your father was playing his guitar in his room. He was so handsome, my teenage heart fluttered for hours even after I woke up."

Chanyeol's father preens like a peacock and sends his wife a dashing dopey smile as she forks some more bacon onto his plate.

"What are you going to do?" the older man asks later on in the day, when the family has settled in the living room. "Are you going to look for him?"

Chanyeol sighs into his tea cup. "I don't even know what he looks like." It's been torturing him every day, like the missing piece of a jigsaw puzzle that he just cannot find no matter how long he spends looking for it. It's definitely not in the box, that's for certain.

His father looks sympathetic but hopeful, flashing his son a broad grin that Chanyeol recognises as his own. "I guess you'll have to wait until the next one."

"Yeah, I guess."

"Well make sure to keep us updated," his mother says, pouring her husband and son more tea, a little extra for Chanyeol. "I want to know everything about my future son-in-law. Where he lives, what he does for a living. His measurements so I can knit him ugly woollen sweaters in the winter that he'll never be able to get rid of."

Chanyeol laughs for the first time that day, spilling tea all over his fingers. "He does look like the woolly sweater type."

Handing him a cloth to wipe up his mess, Chanyeol's mother smiles, warm like the summer sun. "As long as he's good for my favourite boy, I don't care what type he is."

"I'm your only boy."

He doesn't manage to escape the clip she gives him on his ear, but Chanyeol doesn't mind. His parents are happy, and so is he, and that's all that matters.

~

There is dirt under his fingers and the smell of summer when Chanyeol opens his eyes. Sitting up, he looks around to see he is surrounded by trees, beams of sunlight peeking through the branches and leaves and bathing the area in a soft glow. It must be summer, or maybe spring, Chanyeol thinks, and he runs his fingers through grass as he pushes himself up onto his feet, dusting the mud from his behind as he squints through the sunlight.

There's nothing much to look at, in all honesty. Forests don't really differ from each other, and when you've seen one you've seen them all in Chanyeol's opinion. But there's something different about this one that keeps Chanyeol on his toes, treading carefully over fallen twigs and wild flowers as he explores the clearing. There are birds singing, soft like the summer wind that ripples through the leaves, and a little red squirrel runs across the ground near Chanyeol's feet before scuttling up a nearby tree. He closes his eyes, and when he listens really closely, he can just hear the sounds of children's laughter and the distant honking of cars. He comes to the conclusion that he must be near some houses, or a park perhaps. He definitely isn't in the city this time.

The sound of a branch snapping makes him open his eyes, and his breath falters when he sees that there is a boy stood a few metres in front of him. He is small, very small, probably no higher than Chanyeol's waist. His shorts are dirty, and there is a scuff in his knee, pink and tender, and Chanyeol guesses he must be about six or seven years old, the same age as his sister's son. The boy's hair flops into his eyes and he shakes his head to get it out of the way, and Chanyeol realises quickly that this must be his soulmate when he was a child, tiny and bony with dirt on his clothes and under his fingernails.

He is entirely unprepared for the amount of emotions that shoot through him.

The boy starts walking towards him, and Chanyeol steps out of the way just before the boy reaches him, watching silently as he passes through the space where Chanyeol had been standing. Chanyeol gets a good look at his face and sees wide eyes, a deep brown like aged wood, a little button nose and round lips the colour of the inside of a rose. He is an awfully cute child, and Chanyeol struggles to resist the urge to coo. The boy's stance screams determination, hands clenched at his sides and thick brow furrowed as he marches through the woods, heading deeper within where the trees thicken and patches of sunlight become sparse.

Chanyeol follows after him.

The trees seem to lean towards them as they walk. After a minute or so, Chanyeol looks back and sees that the clearing he had woken in has blurred together as if coated in fog, disappearing from sight in a cloud of mist, just like it had done in his other dream. He tries not to look back often, slightly unnerved that the world is literally disappearing around him, choosing instead to focus on the boy in front of him. 

The forest grows more dense and his soulmate sometimes stumbles over a raised root or startles as a stray plant brushes against him, and Chanyeol cant help but wonder. What on earth is he doing here if he is so afraid?

After a few minutes, the boy comes to a stop in front of a giant tree, so big that it blocks out the sky above them. The trunk is thick and gnarled, covered in knots and bare in parts where large amounts of bark have rotted away and fallen to the ground. It is truly a monster of a tree, as harrowing as it is beautiful, and Chanyeol watches with bated breath, hiding behind a nearby tree, as the boy walks over to it and starts to climb, hooking his feet in the deep grooves of the trunk and gripping onto low branches to surge himself upwards.

It's difficult, that much is obvious. The boy is clearly struggling, letting out grunts and gasps as he wraps his little hands around branches and vines and climbs higher and higher, slowly but steadily making progress. Chanyeol loved to climb trees as a child, and he was very good at it, having had the advantage of being long and lanky even back then, but his soulmate was clearly unused to such an activity, his barely-there muscles straining with effort needed to keep himself from falling and sweat beading against his brow, dripping down his face. 

He's doing an amazing job though, all things considered. It is a horrendously big tree, and Chanyeol can safely say he would not have attempted to conquer it until he was far older than his soulmate is at this moment. He finds himself cheering in his head, hands clenched into fists as his soulmate pushes onwards, praying in his heart to see the boy succeed. Is his soulmate still as determined and headstrong as he was then? Chanyeol likes to think so. His soulmate is probably even cooler than he is now.

"What are you doing?"

They are not alone. The little boy stops moving, turning to look over his shoulder just as he reaches out for another branch. Chanyeol does the same, standing up straight when he sees another boy standing with them in the clearing, staring up at the boy in the tree. He is older, perhaps ten or eleven years old, and is almost the spitting image of Chanyeol's soulmate, with round eyes and plump lips, as small as he is sturdy. His brother, perhaps? Or maybe a close cousin. Whoever he is, he looks furious as he marches over to the tree and forcefully points at the ground. "Get down, you're going to hurt yourself!"

"Seungsoo?" the smaller boy squeaks, and in the brief lapse of concentration he grabs hold of empty air rather than the cold bark of a tree branch, letting out a cry as his feet and hands slip and he is sent tumbling down, hurtling towards the hard earth.

"No!" Chanyeol shouts as he rushes out from his hiding spot. There is a sickening crack and crunch as the boy hits the ground, his cries piercing and pained as he curls into a ball and holds his arm to his stomach. Chanyeol knows this isn't real, that this happened years ago and that his soulmate probably can't remember anything about it at all anymore, but it still hurts like mad to see the small boy in pain, arm most likely broken from the fall. He wishes he could help, wants nothing more than to cradle the screaming boy in his arms, but chooses to stand a few metres away when the boy's brother, Seungsoo, hurries over to crouch beside him.

It's not like he could do anything anyway.

"You idiot, what on earth did you think you were doing?"

Now sitting up, held tightly the other boy's hands, Chanyeol can see the smaller boy's face. His cheeks are drowning in tears, eyes closed tight as he whimpers in pain. "I'm sorry." He jostles his arm in Seungsoo's embrace, wailing pitifully. "It really hurts."

His soulmate's arm is slightly crooked, bent in a sickening way that makes Chanyeol's stomach lunge, skin turning a vicious shade of purple. Seungsoo looks how Chanyeol feels, like he is going to fall apart from the inside out. But he remains calm, wiping his brother's tears with his thumbs. "I think it's broken." He stands up and tucks his hands under the boy's armpits, tugging him upwards. "Come on, mummy and daddy will know what to do."

Taking his older brother's hand, his soulmate sniffles and allows himself to be led away from the giant tree and back the way he came.

Chanyeol follows them as they stumble through the woods and beyond, breaking into open space with the sunlight beating down on their faces and necks. Chanyeol's earlier suspicions are corrected when he spies a park nearby, children playing with each other on the swings and monkey bars as their parents watch closely. Are the boys' mother and father there, wondering where they are? Or perhaps they are still at home? As the boy's head in the opposite direction of the park, Chanyeol guesses it's the latter.

Seungsoo's hand is gripping his brother's own so very tightly as they make their way over empty roads and through fields, grass and weeds dried gold in the sun. It's rather a long distance for boys that young to be walking by themselves, but it was another time, Chanyeol thinks, and he suspects that the two boys live a village over from the park when a small crop of houses come into view on the horizon. Soon after, dirt and rock turns into concrete and tarmac, and the boys turn into a street lined with quaint little houses, so rural in comparison to the city where Chanyeol grew up.

Neither boy has said anything the entire journey. It's a while before one of them does.

"Why were you climbing that tree?" Seungsoo asks. "You know mummy told you not to do that, it's dangerous."

Chanyeol's soulmate hides his face by looking down at the ground, tucking his chin into his chest. "The boys at the park said I was too small and weak to play with them."

"And you wanted to climb the tree to show them you're not weak?"

There is a brief pause. And then, "I'm not weak."

Seungsoo sighs, but he squeezes his brother's hand. "I know you're not, Kyungsoo. But don't do that again. A bunch of bullies are not worth it."

"Okay. I'm sorry."

Chanyeol wakes up just before they reach the driveway of his soulmate's childhood home. It's still dark outside, a lot earlier than when he usually wakes, and his right arm feels a little funny, an itch deep inside the bone that fades as the seconds pass, each one longer than the next.

With so much to think about, there is only one word that keeps running through his mind, a mantra playing over and over again in time with the beating of his heart.

Kyungsoo.

His soulmate's name is Kyungsoo.

~

Chanyeol can remember his first lesson about Dreams and Dreaming, way back in elementary school when the idea of love and soulmates were completely foreign and uninteresting to him. He had settled down in his classroom with his fellow students, all wanting to be anywhere else but indoors learning about gross icky things that aren't important, but as soon as his teacher started explaining what dreams actually were and why they happened, he could think of nothing else.

Dreams are like movies that your brain makes in your sleep, his teacher had explained. It is not confirmed why they happen, or why they don't happen until around the time after your body stops going through puberty and has completely finished developing, but it is known that they are the gateway to finding your soulmate, the one person in the world that shares your soul, your blood, your mind, created by whatever force there is out there especially for you.

During this period, when a person sleeps, they will see moments from their soulmate's life, random and unorganised, from the time they were a baby right up to their present age. These moments are not necessarily big or important events and can be as mundane as them shopping for groceries or watching tv, but each and every one is valuable and important, as they are everything that your soulmate is and has grown up to be. No dream is more important than the other, for everything you see has been chosen from decades of life specifically for you to experience, and should not be taken lightly.

"However," the teacher had said, commanding attention from her restless students, "just because you dream of your soulmate does not mean you will ever meet them, or want to meet them. Some may choose to search for their soulmate as soon as they start dreaming, and some rely on fate to guide them together naturally. Some people go their entire lives never being able to find the person that they dream of, and some choose never to find them anyway, if they are already in a happy relationship or simply have no interest in being with them. Some people see multiple people in their dreams, have multiple soulmates, and some people never dream at all. Every dream and dreamer is different, just as people are different from each other, and how you eventually deal with your dreams when you have them is no one else's business but your own."

It was all rather too complicated for Chanyeol to understand, far too busy playing with his Power Rangers and avoiding doing his homework to bother with silly things like dreams and soulmates, even if he often imagined what it would be like to watch movies in his sleep because that sounded really cool. It wasn't until he was years older, at the age of nineteen, when his best friend, Baekhyun, burst into his room just as the sun was peeking over the horizon to tell him he had had his first ever dream, that he started to take the idea of dreams and dreaming a bit more seriously.

"What, you're not kidding?" Chanyeol asked, moving over so Baekhyun could plonk himself down on the end of his bed. Chanyeol had only just woken up and hadn't even left his bed yet. Baekhyun was sweating heavily, chest heaving as he panted for air, having ran all the way from the other side of town.

"Nope. I'm deadly serious," Baekhyun said between breathes. "It was, shit, Chanyeol, it was unlike anything I've ever imagined."

Shoving the covers off of him, Chanyeol climbed out of bed and grabbed a relatively clean glass from his bedside table, walking out of the room and into the bathroom to get his friend some water. When he returned, he settled back into bed while Baekhyun drank, gulping down the liquid like he hadn't had a drink his whole life. "What happened?"

Baekhyun took a few more mouthfuls of water, wiping away stray droplets with his sleeve, before putting the glass down in his lap. "He was at school, in the middle of a test. A big one, I think." He rubbed the back of his head. "I don't know."

"School? How old was he?"

"Around fifteen, maybe?" He sighed, hollow in the back of his throat. "It was all a bit of a blur. Dreams are fucking weird, man."

Chanyeol sat up straighter. "What's it like?"

Baekhyun took a moment to think, pants having died down to quiet gasps. "It's like… It's like when you go somewhere where you went as a kid but have no memory of ever being there. But something about it is so familiar and also really strange, cause technically you've been there but you don't remember being there?" He snorted. "That's a really shitty explanation, sorry."

"It's cool," Chanyeol said, nudging his friend in the thigh from under the bed covers. "It's probably different for everyone."

Baekhyun nodded, closed his eyes, but said nothing.

The sun was higher in the sky then, filling the room with a rustic yellow and orange light. It made Baekhyun's face glow, bringing out the curves and grooves of his face in dark shadows, and Chanyeol could see that he was frowning, brow creased and lines either side of his mouth. There was still sweat on his temples, dripping down onto his jawline, and something looked awfully off about him, like he was reliving something painful behind his eyes.

Chanyeol reached out a hand to poke him in the arm, and Baekhyun opened his eyes to look at him before turning to look at the glass in his lap. 

"What's wrong?" Chanyeol asked.

Baekhyun didn't look up from his lap, but Chanyeol could see the tightness in his jaw even from this angle. "I looked at the test booklet he was doing. It was all in Chinese."

Chanyeol's stomach dropped. "Oh, Baek."

"And all the displays on the walls. Everything was in Chinese."

He looked so broken, and Chanyeol shuffled forwards to pull his friends into his arms, holding him tight. To have your soulmate far away was bad anyway, but in a different country? And one as big and as populated as China? He couldn't even begin to imagine how horrible Baekhyun had felt that day. The boy had curled into him, resting against his shoulder as he picked at his nails and bit his lips, Chanyeol hugging him closer after muffled sobs started to wrack through him.

Baekhyun left a few hours later, belly full to the brim with a hearty breakfast after Chanyeol's mother had discovered he was in her house and hadn't eaten yet. 

Chanyeol laid in his bed after he had gone, staring at the ceiling, praying that fate would be kinder to him than it has been to his best friend.

~

"Kyungsoo! Sing us a song?"

The bar is pulsating, patrons filling up every seat and every space. Nestled in the back corner, away from the main body of the crowd, Chanyeol sits on a chair nearby and watches with his head in his hand as Kyungsoo splutters into his glass and chokes on the liquid, face scrunching up, nose wrinkling. His friend, a tall, skinny man with dyed orange hair, whacks him on the back. It does very little to help clear the other man's airway, but it's the thought that counts.

"No," Kyungsoo says, waving his hand dismissively once he has figured out how to use his lungs properly again. "No singing."

Chanyeol has seen Kyungsoo drunk a few times, in the months that have passed since he first saw Kyungsoo buying milk, and he thinks he is adorable, all blurred edges and softness, limp tongue and fidgety hands. His cheeks are a deep red and he positively glowing, and he keeps playing with his glass, running his fingers around the rim, frowning every now and then, like he is going to sneeze, only to pour himself another drink. The table is littered with tiny paper planes made from the cheap napkins from the bar, each one meticulously folded by his strong but wobbly hands. He's removed and replaced his screen protector twice now. Chanyeol could watch him forever.

The orange haired man drapes himself over the table. "Come on!" he whines, stretching out each word and emphasising them with a roll of his eyes. "Just one? It's my birthday."

Kyungsoo stops glaring at the bottom of his glass like it had offended his mother, lifting his eyes and sending his friend a pointed look, face devoid of any significant emotion. 

"Happy Birthday, Sehun."

Chanyeol snorts. 

"Kyungsoo, this is mean," the man, Sehun, groans. He pulls his head up from the table and rests it in the curve of Kyungsoo's neck, nudging him affectionately like a pampered pooch would do its owner. "Don't you love me?" he says. Kyungsoo is still staring at the space where Sehun's head used to be, most likely struggling to figure out in his intoxicated state where his friend has gone, eyes focussing so intently on the empty space that he looks like he could burn a hole through the table. "I thought I was your favourite?"

Blinking himself back into reality, Kyungsoo turns his head to rest it on top of the one in his neck. He lifts a hand and curls it around to pat Sehun on the cheek, and Sehun leans into it. Chanyeol wonders if the young man has a puppy himself; he certainly acts like one, and Chanyeol is only mildly annoyed that Kyungsoo lets him get away with it, pandering to his whims, albeit with some attempt at reluctance. Maybe Kyungsoo has a puppy himself, a real one. He'd be a wonderful dog dad, Chanyeol thinks, and then promptly grins to himself because the thought of Kyungsoo with puppies is just too much for him to deal with.

"Pour me another shot and you'll definitely be my favourite."

Sehun is clearly unsatisfied. He uncurls himself from Kyungsoo's side and huffs in his seat, a pout puckering at his lips."You're so shit when you're drunk," he grumbles, but he still leans over the table to take the nearest soju bottle and pour another round into Kyungsoo's shot glass. Kyungsoo takes it and bumps it onto the tip of Sehun's nose before downing it, and Sehun pouts at him harder before folding his arms on the table and resting his head on them. "And I was having a really good day as well." He flicks a paper plane in Kyungsoo's direction and it bounces off of his chest.

Kyungsoo licks his lips, catching spare droplets of alcohol with his tongue, and Chanyeol watches the movement closely, eyes drawn to the lovely curve of his Cupid's bow, the rounded sharpness of the corners where his tongue disappears. Chanyeol wishes he could reach out and touch him, feel the softness of those lips under his fingertips, but he knows he can't. He's tried to a few times, and every time has failed, Kyungsoo moving out of reach like he subconsciously knows Chanyeol is there, or Chanyeol's hand disappearing through him, the world around him seeping through his fingers like smoke. 

What would it be like to touch him, to hold his hand and feel his heat on his skin? Chanyeol prays he will know soon, else he go mad from seeing Kyungsoo every night, soft and firm and oh so beautiful, and remain unable to do anything but look at him.

It's unbearable, but for now, all he can do is watch.

Kyungsoo is looking at Sehun with glazed over eyes, distant but somehow still fond. Chanyeol has seen Sehun in his dreams once before, as a small boy when Kyungsoo was in school, both part of the Christmas Nativity. Kyungsoo was Joseph (his head scarf was far too big and kept falling into his eyes, and the only person who cheered for him louder than Chanyeol did was Kyungsoo's own mother) and Sehun was the back end of a donkey, and, judging by the fact they are drinking together as adults, have remained close friends ever since. Chanyeol has a few friends of his own like that, like Baekhyun, who he has known since he was six, and he knows that they are practically family; Kyungsoo looks at Sehun like a doting older brother would their younger sibling. Letting out a deep sigh of defeat, Kyungsoo tweaks one of Sehun's ears to get his attention, and sends him a sloppy yet affectionate smile.

"Fine. I'll sing you a song."

Sehun bolts up instantly, slipping out of his chair a little and gripping onto Kyungsoo for balance as he rights himself. "Yes! Thank you hyung!" He pulls Kyungsoo into a hug that would probably be far better coordinated if not for the several bottles of soju in their systems, squeezing Kyungsoo tightly before releasing him and spinning around to face the other end of the table. "Hey, Jongin!" he shouts over the noise of the crowd.

Peering around the blurred outline of a fellow patron, Chanyeol spies another man sat with the group. He is passed out on his folded arms, clearly having been fast asleep for goodness knows how long, a paper plane lodged behind his ear, and he stutters awake and sluggishly lifts his head to squint down the table at the sound of his name. "Huh?" he mumbles, blinking at his friends. "What's happening?"

"Kyungsoo is going to sing me a song!"

The man - Jongin, apparently - instantly perks up, a warm dopey smile blooming across his face as he sits up and stretches. "Fuck yes." He lets out a yawn and brushes his hair out of his eyes. "Kyungsoo has the best voice in the whole world!"

The flush that runs across Kyungsoo's cheeks and down his neck is the only thing that shows he's registered the comment. He brushes his hands across the table, pushing glasses and bottles and napkin origami away from him before standing up slowly, sluggishly. Sehun dramatically shushes everyone in the vicinity of the area, even people that are complete strangers, as far as Chanyeol is aware, and Jongin gets up to shuffle gracelessly down the table and settle on the other side of Kyungsoo, resting his head on his hands and gazing up at him in childlike awe. A few people are not pleased that they are being told to be quiet by someone they have never met, and their glares only get worse when Sehun and Jongin start chanting Kyungsoo's name at the top of their lungs, banging their fists on the table.

"Kyungsoo! Kyungsoo! Kyungsoo!"

Chanyeol holds back laughter as Kyungsoo reaches down and grips both men by the backs of their necks, squeezing until they quieten down. "Shut up," he grumbles, but his lips are curled at the corners. "Or I'll never do anything for you again."

"Sing! Sing my angel of music!"

Another pinch on Sehun's neck and the young man finally shuts up, copying Jongin in grinning up at the shorter man. Kyungsoo is swaying slightly, as if moving to an invisible beat, and he closes his eyes, brow scrunching up in thought. 

Chanyeol leans forward in his seat.

After a few moments of quiet, Kyungsoo clears his throat, opens his eyes, and starts to sing.

The song he chooses is an old one, a classic trot song from their parents' time that everyone is born knowing the words to, but no one says anything as Kyungsoo drifts through the melody, his voice bottomless and so, so deep, like the ocean, smooth like waves on a shoreline. Chanyeol is gripping the table so hard his knuckles are bone white, and his blood pumps fiercely in his veins as he watches his soulmate float through the verses and chorus', surprisingly coherent despite the amount of alcohol swimming in his system. 

Kyungsoo's hands are held in front of him, positioned as if in offering, and every now and then he brings them together, as if in prayer. Around him, everything is bathed in a dark wash, coming less in focus as Kyungsoo's voice sweeps through the room. Even Sehun and Jongin, once sat right next to him on either side, have become nothing but shapes concealed by fog. 

There is only Kyungsoo, his hands, his lips, his voice strong like an earthquake but as soft as a whisper, and Chanyeol, alone on the next table, drowning in the ripples of Kyungsoo's song.

Chanyeol wakes with the sun in his eyes and Kyungsoo's voice in his head, in his blood, in his soul, playing over and over and over again. 

~

It's raining for the first time in weeks on the day Chanyeol has arranged to meet his friends for coffee. It's the kind of rain that bounces back up from the ground, a thick wall of water that leaves you blind as you try to push through it, snatching umbrellas away in violent gusts of wind and drenching you to your bones no matter how many layers you wear. Thankfully, Jongdae had gone with Minseok to work that day and had grabbed the table right beside the radiators, allowing Chanyeol to press his feet against it and warm his soaked and shivering toes, ankles bumping with Baekhyun's under the table.

His drink helps to fight the cold in his fingers. It's been a while since he's seen his friends, and Minseok, who gave him a free muffin when he ordered his drink because "there was only one left anyway," and it's nice to spend time with them after weeks of staying cooped up in his studio, working all day and night to meet his deadlines. Jongdae whining at nothing and Baekhyun's nonsensical babbling are a familiar melody that Chanyeol will always know the tune to, and all the tension that has knotted itself in his shoulders overtime is starting to fade the longer he hears his friends' bickering and laughter.

It's been a few days since his last dream. Even with all his projects complete and nothing to consume his every waking hours, Chanyeol still feels a little on edge.

"Shut up."

Chanyeol stops staring out of the window and turns to look begrudgingly at his friend. "I wasn't saying anything?"

Brow arching, Jongdae sips from his drink. "I can hear you thinking from here." Next to him, Baekhyun snorts into his coffee. "It's distracting me from enjoying my macchiato."

Chanyeol kicks him under the table, relishing in the pained squawk that follows. "You're an arse, Dae."

Spluttering indignantly, but with lips curling at the corners, Jongdae reaches out to flick the taller on the forehead. "It's the truth! You look like you're trying to solve all the world's problems but are failing miserably." He takes another sip of his drink. "You've never been good at hiding your emotions, you know."

Baekhyun hums in agreement and pokes at Chanyeol's hand. "What's on your mind?" He tilts his head, inquisitive. "Is it Toad?"

Baekhyun had taken to referring Chanyeol's soulmate by that rather unflattering nickname after a dream Chanyeol had a few months ago in which Kyungsoo played (and won, Chanyeol had boasted proudly) Mario Kart at a friend's house. It didn't help that Kyungsoo is apparently a rather tiny individual that likes wearing hats, as Chanyeol has described to Baekhyun many times, and the name unfortunately stuck, to much of Chanyeol's chagrin.

(It's alright though, because Chanyeol got his revenge by calling Baekhyun's soulmate Shaun after his friend told him the man in his dreams looks a little bit like a baby sheep. Chanyeol had laughed so hard he had hiccups for the rest of the day.)

Chanyeol sighs and looks down at his drink. "I just want to know where he is." The steam from the coffee makes his glasses steam up, so he takes them off and wipes them on his shirt. "It's been a year now." 

A year to the day exactly, in fact.

Baekhyun replies with a sympathetic but weak smile, which Chanyeol appreciates nonetheless, and Jongdae leans across the table to bump him on the shoulder with his fist. "He'll turn up at some point."

The comment makes Chanyeol scoff. "That's alright for you to say," he says, addressing his friend with an arching brow. "You found Minseok in what, a day?"

A smirk is his reply. "Approximately 14 hours, yeah."

It's something that Jongdae is immensely proud of, the fact that he had found his soulmate almost immediately after having his first dream. Chanyeol has never seen anything like it. When he had just turned twenty, Jongdae had dreamed of seeing a group of young boys playing in the snow, throwing snowballs at each other and making angels on their backs until their fingers and lips turned blue. Just hours later, after being sent on a coffee run by his boss, Jongdae ended up being served by the very person he had seen in his dream, now a sharp eyed and even sharper tongued barista, who, according to Jongdae, dropped a steaming hot cup of freshly made cappuccino all over his leg when Jongdae walked in.

It wasn't long before Jongdae moved out of Chanyeol and Baekhyun's apartment. After two years of peaceful cohabitation, he and Minseok are still completely in love, and have recently become the loving fathers of a very fluffy cat that likes to claw at Chanyeol's legs whenever he has the time to visit.

Chanyeol is not jealous.

Using his napkin as a weapon, Baekhyun wafts the paper in the other man's face. "Silence," he demands as Jongdae squawks and swats away the attack whilst trying not to elbow his drink. "You're an anomaly, you don't count in this equation." When Jongdae finally manages to flick the napkin from his hand and throw it back, Baekhyun turns back to the taller of the trio. He's smiling, but his jaw is tight. 

"Trust me, Chanyeol. One year is nothing compared to three."

Chanyeol sometimes forgets how long Baekhyun has been dreaming for. He nudges Baekhyun's foot with his own, rubbing their ankles together, and Baekhyun smiles at him before pinching a bit of Chanyeol's muffin in his fingers and popping it in his mouth. There is still a tightness in the corners of his lips, but Chanyeol doesn't mention it.

"How is he, by the way?" Jongdae asks, stealing a bit of the muffin as well and eating it before Chanyeol can slap his hand away. "Still running around in low cut shirts and tight pants?"

Rolling his eyes, Baekhyun lets out a groan, tipping to the side to bump his head on the window. "Yes," he whines, pouting. "It's like he does it on purpose."

Chanyeol snorts as he laughs, deep and loud. Minseok peers at them from behind the counter on the other end of the café. "Damn, what an unforgiving man."

"I hate him." Baekhyun throws his hands up into the air. "How am I supposed to function in life when he owns so many low cut shirts? Who is this man? Why does he do this to me?"

"Hopefully you'll be able to confront him about his inability to dress himself soon."

"Pssh, like that would ever-"

Suddenly he chokes, inhaling a mouthful of hot coffee and spitting it out so hard it ends up all over Chanyeol's face and shirt, scolding him through the fabric of his shirt. "Jesus, Baek!" Chanyeol shouts as Baekhyun continues to hack and cough, thumping his own chest as Jongdae pats him on the back. "Remember to breathe, damn."

Baekhyun says something, but Chanyeol doesn't make out what the words are through the sounds of him spluttering liquid from his lungs between breathes and Jongdae laughing like a hyena as he mops up the mess with spare napkins. "What?" he asks, and does so again when Baekhyun's coughing dies down enough for him to breathe properly. "Say that again?"

"It's him."

His voice sounds raw and tender, most likely from being burned by his drink, but there is disbelief and fear laced into his words, and Chanyeol finds himself freezing still when his eyes meet Baekhyun's across the table. They're wet, and Chanyeol suspects for a moment that it's not just from the choking.

"What?"

Baekhyun wipes his mouth. "Over there." He nods towards the space behind them, near the counter. "He just walked in. It's him."

Spinning around, Chanyeol and Jongdae turn to look towards the entrance of the café. There is a small queue of people waiting to be served, all stood in line, but there is one person that stands out amongst the rest. Right at the back, hidden behind a group of giggling school girls.

Chanyeol thinks back to all the times Baekhyun has spoken of the man he sees every night. Of the way he describes him and the little features that culminate to form the man Baekhyun is destined to spend the rest of his life with. All of those previous thoughts fly out the window when Chanyeol takes in the man before them.

This is him. This is Baekhyun's soulmate.

"Oh fuck."

He doesn't realise Baekhyun is moving until the sound of the chair grating across the ground snaps him out of his daze. Neither Chanyeol nor Jongdae say or do anything as Baekhyun hesitantly crosses the café. He stumbles a little, like his legs are slowly forgetting how to work properly. He stops a short distance from where his soulmate is stood with his eyes on his phone, oblivious to the person stood beside him.

Chanyeol has known Baekhyun since he was six, when Baekhyun had shoved a boy who was bullying Chanyeol for his ears out of the sandpit and told him to "eat dirt, you poopy head," and Chanyeol has been with him every moment since. But never, in all the years they have known each other, has Chanyeol seen Baekhyun look so vulnerable, like he is made of sugar glass and will crumble on the spot at the slightest touch.

"Yixing."

The man looks up at the sound of his name. He looks around for a second, eyes unfocused as they seek out who spoke to him before they settle on Baekhyun, and Chanyeol has never seen a face change so fast, melting from nonchalance to something so raw and tender and exposed that it leaves Chanyeol feeling like he is witnessing the baring of the man's very soul. His eyes are round as he gazes down at Baekhyun like all the answers to the universe are hidden in plain sight, on the plain of his skin, in the curve of his nose and dip of his Cupid's bow.

"It's you."

His voice is soft, and there is just a trace of an accent, a slight curl to the words that makes Chanyeol remember he is actually Chinese. How long has he been in Korea, been so close to his soulmate without a single clue he was within arms reach?

How close is Kyungsoo?

Baekhyun nods. "I can't," he says before bringing his hands to his mouth and choking out a sob that shudders through him, so violent that Chanyeol can hear it from several metres away, can feel it tear through him as well. Almost instantly, Yixing dives forward and pulls Baekhyun into his arms, tucking the smaller's face into his chest and squeezing him so very gently as Baekhyun all but dissolves.

"It's you. Oh my God, it's actually you. I've waited, oh my God, I've waited so long, so long, fuck."

Yixing had dropped his phone in the process, and it is the sound of it clattering against the floor that draws the attention of the surrounding people. Minseok, who peers around his current customer at the noise, gasps out loud when he sees the couple at the back of the queue. Jongdae stumbles up from his chair and rushes over to him, whispering in his ear with his legs dangling in the air, having jumped atop the counter to reach him, and Minseok's eyes widen and his mouth drops open, completely disinterested in the customer in front of him.

Chanyeol takes a step forward, but he stops when Yixing pulls back and leans down to press his forehead against Baekhyun's own. He starts to speak.

Chanyeol can't hear what the man says, but then he's taking Baekhyun's face in his hands and kissing him full on the mouth, right in the middle of the café. Someone starts clapping, and then someone else joins in, and soon the whole building is breaking out into applause, everyone from small children to a table full of old men whooping and cheering as the couple embrace.

Later that week, after all the commotion has died down and Baekhyun and Yixing have had time to themselves, Chanyeol asks what Yixing had said to him, whispered into Baekhyun's mouth in the middle of a public place like they were the only two people in the world. The sound of Baekhyun laughing tickles his ears through the phone and Chanyeol can hear his smile, can see in his mind the way it stretches across his face in a way Chanyeol hasn't seen for four years.

"He told me he loves me. He said, don't cry, my love, because I have found you. I love you."

Chanyeol falls asleep to those three words on his lips.

He dreams of Kyungsoo.

~

It didn't take long for Chanyeol to fall for Kyungsoo, in all honesty. He was intrigued by the third dream, ensnared by the sixth, enamoured by the twelfth. Chanyeol had fallen before he even realised he had.

Kyungsoo is like coming home, warm and soft, freshly washed cotton and hot chocolate in the winter, ginger and honey and lemon and thyme.

Kyungsoo is like travelling the world, new and exciting and so familiarly unfamiliar that Chanyeol is left reeling in the aftermath of his glow, craving more every time he opens his eyes. 

He sees everything, from Kyungsoo's first steps to his college graduation, the time he sang at his brother's wedding to the night he had to drive to three separate nightclubs to locate a very drunk and hysterical Sehun after his girlfriend left him.

He's witnessed the fights he's had with his mother and the judo tournaments he has both won and lost. He's lived through Kyungsoo's emo phase, his violin lessons, his first and last cigarette.

Kyungsoo does have a dog, two in fact, but he's thinking of getting a cat as well. His favourite food is well-done steak and he doesn't like vinegar on his fries. He wasn't very good in school but somehow did well in tests anyway, and he once broke his cousin's remote controlled airplane and mowed all the lawns in the village until he had enough money to buy her a new one.

Chanyeol dreams of Kyungsoo's first kiss, hesitant and shy with a girl he barely knew, and his first time, bare hands on bare skin, hot and wet and glistening, and he wakes with a tension all over his body, coiled up tight like a spring that bursts to the sound Kyungsoo's name on his lips as the sun breaks the horizon.

(The guilt eats away at him for days. He wonders what moments of his own life that Kyungsoo has witnessed and felt ashamed of.)

Kyungsoo is his everything, from the moment he wakes to the second he closes his eyes, and Chanyeol loves him more than he could ever say, more than words can describe and explain. He loves him, completely and undoubtedly.

And it hurts.

It's difficult for him to come to terms with it at first, that he cannot touch or hold or speak to the person he feels so much for. Sometimes he avoids going to bed, locks himself in his studio and wrings his brain dry for hours on end to avoid the chance of seeing Kyungsoo again, of falling even further than he already has. Sometimes he drinks, drowns his thoughts in whiskey and rum, hoping that the alcohol will wash the memory of his dreams from his mind altogether. Sometimes he falls asleep with his phone in hand and wakes with Yixing sat beside him with a glass of water, gentle hands tucking him deeper into his bedsheets and wiping vomit from his mouth.

"Baekhyun told me to check up on you. You rang him again last night. He's worried about you."

"It's like this sometimes. I'm sorry about that."

"You just have to be patient. It sucks but I promise there'll be an end to this soon."

Chanyeol wants to believe him.

Another year passes and Chanyeol feels older than he should do. Jongdae and Minseok are now engaged and are thinking of adopting within the next few years or so. Baekhyun and Yixing have moved in together and are working towards getting a bigger apartment closer to where Yixing works as a dance instructor. Chanyeol feels like the world is leaving him behind, a bus too full for him to catch. He's still waiting at the station, watching as his friends move on with their lives while he stays still, alone, looking out for a bus that never seems to turn up no matter how long he stands there.

But Kyungsoo is out there, somewhere, and no matter how hard it is, he will wait for him as long as he needs to.

~

It's late in the afternoon by the time Chanyeol stumbles into his car. Sunlight has barely warmed the inside and he pulls his coat closer to him as he settles in the seat, letting out a deep exhausted sigh. The day has been far too long and horrendously tedious, and why he had to sit through all those business meetings when he was only really needed for two of them is beyond his knowledge, but at least he can go home now and nap until he forgets the day ever existed.

Apart from he can't. He needs to go shopping before he even thinks about heading home. Chanyeol remembers the everlasting list of groceries he needs to buy tucked away in his wallet and groans, bumping his head on the back of his seat. After a few moments of petulant whining he starts the car, shivering as warm air pumps through the air-con and slowly forces the cold out of his body.

Humming a tune to himself as a distraction, Chanyeol pulls out of the parking lot. Autumn has come at full force this year, the streets and pavements painted in rich tones of brown and red and orange. The few people that are out at this time of day are bundled up tight in thick sweaters and scarves, children looking like bowling balls as they are dragged behind their parents through mountains of leaves that crunch under their feet. Chanyeol drives slowly, taking in the sight of lovers walking hand in hand, huddling together to keep warm, and aged pumpkins rotting in front of shop windows and down alleyways. Chanyeol never used to be one for autumn, preferring the glorious heat of summer or star-like shimmer of winter, but recently he has found himself growing fond of the season, of the way it makes nature dance in the wind, bringing the earth to life in brushstrokes of fire and gold.

(It has nothing to do with the fact that autumn is Kyungsoo's favourite season.)

It's been almost two weeks since his last dream. Chanyeol feels a lot colder these days, his bones creaking and heart throbbing. It's not the kind of cold that Autumn had brought last month, soft but sharp like frost on the skeleton of a fallen leaf. It's deeper, more melancholic, like the empty space in a bed that once held two, or the hole in the sole of a shoe on a rainy day. It's an unfamiliar feeling that has followed him around for several days, sitting heavy at his temples and in the tips of his fingers and toes, and Chanyeol is starting to think that maybe, just maybe, it might mean something. He doesn't know what, or why, and definitely not when, but he can't escape the feeling that _something_ is about to happen.

He asked Baekhyun about it the other day. All his friend did was smile, a sly, knowing smile that Chanyeol has grown to know means bad news, and pour him some more tea.

"It's probably nothing. I wouldn't worry about it."

Chanyeol tries not to. It's proving to be easier said than done.

He comes to a stop when he reaches the traffic lights at a junction, red light glowing softly in the sunset. If he turns right he can go to his usual supermarket, cheaper and closer to the centre of the city where he lives. If he turns left, he'll end up at the edge of the city, at the supermarket that is too expensive and too far away for him to make the journey every other week. The tips of his fingers start to tingle again, and Chanyeol taps them on the wheel.

A tug at his navel, a feeling of heat in his chest. Chanyeol turns right. It's closer to home anyway.

The further away from the city centre he goes, the emptier the streets become. Chanyeol left work long past rush hour, and the drive is uneventful as he makes the short journey across town. As luck would have it, the supermarket parking lot is also rather empty, and he finds a parking spot close to the entrance of the supermarket before forcing himself back out into the cold, sluggishly strolling inside the building and grabbing a basket as he passes. The tips of his fingers are still buzzing, pins and needles prickling down his wrists and through his veins, but he ignores it, heading down the nearest aisle.

Chanyeol's feet drag as he walks. With an exhausted sigh, he reaches the end of the aisle and turns the corner to enter the next one.

Something changes, like the wind has started blowing in a different direction, the tide is pulling back along the shore. A sudden spark of electricity zips down Chanyeol's spine and a peculiar, high-pitched ringing starts to spike in his ears, almost painful in how sharp it is. Why does he feel so strange all of a sudden?

He shakes his head, clearing his thoughts. Maybe it's started raining outside or something.

He needs to buy more milk, in the aisle to his right. Chanyeol isn't sure why, but he heads for the fresh produce in the aisle to his left, lazily grabbing whatever he feels he needs instead of consulting the list in his wallet, ignoring the heaviness that has settled around him. A bag of carrots, some onions. The odd leek or two. He knows he's being careless, just throwing in whatever is closest, but he's tired and needs a shower, and the weird ringing in his ears won't go away. He shakes his head again. The sooner he gets his shopping done and starts making way home the better.

Suddenly, there is movement just beyond the corner of his eye. The ringing in his head, the tingling in his fingers and chill in his bones stops, so sudden that he feels winded, tripping over his own feet. His heart is racing, pounding like drums against his rib cage. Hesitantly, he turns his head to look further down the aisle.

There are three people stood at the other end, a few metres away from him. One of them is tall and skinny, as gangly as he is broad, with hair that is black at the roots, fading into a bright apricot orange at the tips. Another is also tall, dark hair and tanned skin, eyes sleepy despite the fact he is laughing deep and loud at something the other has said. 

It is the other man that catches his attention the most.

The other man is short, a head or so shorter than Chanyeol himself, and his hair is trimmed at the sides and long on the top, neat, a practical style in comparison to the chaotic hay bale that Chanyeol had only just managed to style that morning in a rush. The man's clothes are all black, plain and loose fitting, like they have been stretched from being worn so often. He moves with purpose, like he has somewhere else he needs to be, and everything else seems to fade into one white background as Chanyeol watches as the man picks up an aubergine and turns it in his hands, small but strong, inspecting it between his fingers.

Chanyeol cannot see his face very well, can only just make out the roundness of his button nose and upper lip, like cherry blossom petals in the spring, but Chanyeol doesn't need to see his face to know.

It's him.

His soulmate.

It's Kyungsoo.

"Holy shit."

Chanyeol had thought a lot about what meeting Kyungsoo would be like. He had expected fireworks, explosions, burst of colour like fire in his eyes and earthquakes in his bones. He had expected a tsunami to crash over him and drown him in light, electricity to spark in his blood and veins. But it is nothing like that. It is more like ice, freezing him still. The air is still and the world seems to stop moving, like time itself has ceased to exist. There is no fire, no lightning.

There is only Kyungsoo, and Chanyeol, and the quiet humming of refrigerators in the distance.

Chanyeol doesn't really know what to do. His entire body seems to stop working, knees buckling slightly and brain sending him nothing but white noise as he struggles to comprehend the scene in front of him. That's Kyungsoo, his Kyungsoo, right there, just a few metres away, thick and hard and real, really real and not just a figment of his imagination. Chanyeol is so elated, so overwhelmed, so afraid that he barely breathes as Kyungsoo places the aubergine gently into the basket on his arm and moves a little closer to pick up a butternut squash.

Oh God, he's incredible. Kyungsoo is absolutely stunning. Chanyeol feels like a weed beside him, bony where Kyungsoo is full, rough where Kyungsoo is soft, all straight lines and triangles whilst Kyungsoo is curves and circles. Nothing he has dreamed of has prepared him for how he feels right now, like the entire world is going to fall from under his feet if he does something, like the sky will fall if he does nothing.

He doesn't know how long he stands there staring like a complete idiot in the middle of the aisle, but when Kyungsoo starts moving as if to leave, Chanyeol drops his shopping basket like it has just stabbed his hand and rushes forwards, almost tripping over his own feet. Kyungsoo is leaving and he can't let that happen. He's waited too long to just let him go. 

"Kyungsoo!"

It's almost comical the way Kyungsoo stops moving, his entire body freezing like ice on the spot, squash still in hand, and Chanyeol would laugh if he wasn't afraid of vomiting all over his shoes. Slowly, ever so painfully slow, Kyungsoo turns around, and then he is looking right at Chanyeol from the other side of the aisle and Chanyeol feels all the air in his lungs vanish as his eyes meet the other man's own, deep brown and captivating like the colour of autumn.

"Kyungsoo."

The squash in Kyungsoo's hand falls to the ground, smashing on the cold floor and sending chunks of flesh and seeds all over Kyungsoo's feet and the bottom of his trousers but the man does not look away, his gaze fixed on Chanyeol like they are the only people in the entire building, the entire world.

"Chanyeol?"

Oh, his name sounds like wine on Kyungsoo's lips, deep red and purple and intoxicating. Chanyeol itches to taste it in the other's mouth, feel the letters under his lips and trace out the syllables with his tongue and teeth, wants to whisper into him every word he has ever spoken and thought and read just to hear Kyungsoo repeat them back at him in that bottomless voice, deeper than the sea.

Kyungsoo's eyes are wide and overflowing with so many different emotions - shock, confusion, fear, pure unadulterated happiness - that Chanyeol feels like he's drowning in them. It's then that he notices that the two other men stood beside Kyungsoo are staring at them, heads flipping between Kyungsoo and himself with narrowed eyes and furrowed brows until the more tanned of the two - Jongin, Chanyeol remembers, his name is Jongin, he was there when Kyungsoo sang on the other guy's birthday - leans down to tug at Kyungsoo's sleeve. "Are you okay?"

"It's him. The man from my dreams."

Chanyeol is the man from Kyungsoo's dreams. He feels awfully proud of himself for some reason.

Stepping forwards, one foot in front of the other, Chanyeol makes his way towards his soulmate. Kyungsoo meets him halfway, steps matching the pace of Chanyeol's own until they are right in front of each other. 

"It's you," he says.

Kyungsoo nods. There are freckles on his nose, dotted across his cheeks, a few blending with the mole on his upper lip. Chanyeol counts them in his head.

"I can't believe you're actually here." 

He wants to reach out and touch him, just to be sure, but he doesn't know if he can.

"You're not as tall as I expected."

Of all the things for Kyungsoo to say, Chanyeol had not expected that. He starts a little and tilts his head. "Excuse me?"

Kyungsoo blinks up at him. He looks a little embarrassed, red cheeks as he looks down and rubs his nose before looking back up again. God, he's adorable. Chanyeol could cry. "It's just. I don't know. You always looked taller in my head."

"Okay. That's the first time I've heard someone say that about my height."

"Oh. I'm sorry."

Laughing, Chanyeol brushes his fingers against Kyungsoo's arm, a barely-there touch that sends ripples of heat through his veins. "Don't be. You're everything I ever imagined you to be, and more. So much more."

If Kyungsoo's smile was beautiful in his dreams, it's positively ethereal in reality, thick and round, perfectly plump as they stretch into a heart, a soft pink that matches the blush that blossoms across his cheeks. That smile doesn't fade when Chanyeol lifts a hand to brush a few strands of hair away from his forehead. In fact, Kyungsoo leans into his touch and sighs, as if in relief. Chanyeol wants nothing more than to hold him close and never let go.

Is he really not dreaming? If he is, then it is a good dream. He never wants to wake up.

"I know this is a bit weird seeing as we've literally just met but I really want to kiss you." He can't stop smiling. "I don't think I've ever wanted to do anything more in my life."

Mouth opening and closing, Kyungsoo looks around. "Right now?" Over his shoulder, Jongin and Sehun are watching them intently, whispering to each other. Is Jongin crying? Chanyeol isn't sure, but he is certain that the whole country could be watching them and he wouldn't care at all. Kyungsoo is right in front of him and that's all that matters.

"Yes," he says. "And every moment after, if you'd let me."

A hand slips into his own and Chanyeol squeezes. Kyungsoo's palms are smoother than his own, but warm, and it reminds him of sliding into bed after a very long day. Kyungsoo smiles up at him, and it feels like home.

" I would let you. I will let you."

His eyes are like fire as he moves closer and pulls Chanyeol down, resting their foreheads together.

"Kiss me, soulmate."

And Chanyeol does, taking Kyungsoo's face in his hands and pressing all the things he doesn't have the words to say onto Kyungsoo's lips. Kyungsoo gasps quietly and pushes back harder, his strong hands curling into Chanyeol's shirt, and for the first time in years Chanyeol feels grounded, like he is exactly where he belongs. Kyungsoo's skin is warm and soft, like heated blankets in winter, or white sand in the summer, and he tastes like sugar and spice and home.

Chanyeol is finally home.

And he never wants it any other way.

**Author's Note:**

> This ended up a bit more angsty than I had planned it to be oops. It was also going to be a lot shorter but I got carried away and it became this monster. I hope it doesn't stop people from enjoying the story!
> 
> I'm also sorry the ending is a little rushed, I'm going to be be very busy for the next for days and I really wanted to finish this before I run out of time to focus on it. I'm currently on holiday in the south of France as well so I wrote the entire thing on my phone... Please forgive me if there are any mistakes! I can edit them when I get back home, and also fix the ending maybe, but for now you'll have to live with what is there I'm afraid....
> 
> As always, thank you for reading! Feel free to come yell at me on [tumblr](http://kokokysoo.tumblr.com/ask) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/kokokysoo/) if you have any questions or simply just want to scream about chansoo~


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